In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael PollanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-28
ISBN: 0143114964
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780143114963
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Book Review: As much fun as a food fight, you'll learn a lot too
Summary: 5 Stars
Food fight! Peas and carrots, in a manner of speaking, are flying all over the lunchroom in Michael Pollan's "An Eater's Manifesto."
These peas and carrots are chemical-free and grown locally; Pollan is throwing the figurative vegetables by the handful at the food scientists and marketers who have bullied us into thinking the way to approach food and the activity of eating is to break down what we put into our mouths into the unseen nutrients that make up our foods. "You are what you eat" becomes "You are the nutrients you ingest."
He labels this way of thinking "nutritionism;" its adherents "nutritionists." For Pollan, what nutritionism is an ideology that's transformed the way we view food in our culture. And transformed our outlook in a way that's not any too good for us.
There are macronutrients such as protein and carbohydrates. There are micronutrients, vitamins and amino acids. There are good and bad nutrients, beta carotene (maybe good) and trans fats (very bad). According to nutritionism, fish isn't fish but a way to deliver a grocery list of nutrients including protein, omega-3 fatty acids and a variety of other substances, again some good and some bad, such as calcium (good, maybe) and mercury (not so good).
The big problem is, Pollan says, we don't really have any kind of a grip on how all these nutrients, good and bad, interact and affect our heath and well being, for good or ill. Saturated fat, bad. Polyunsaturated fat, good. Maybe or maybe not. It's those nutrients and more in isolation or in combination with something else that has a bearing on our morbidity and mortality.
So what's a person to eat? The message used to be, get out to the grocery store and buy margarine rather than butter. Oops. Turns out blasting vegetable oil with hydrogen, which is what made the difference between margarine and butter, produces trans fats, which we all know can really clog things up.
Instead of adding beta carotene to a cookie and calling it a health food, how about getting out, buying and eating a carrot; preferably a carrot grown in a garden near you or by a farmer down the country road. Now, that's good and no question about it, good for you. Just eat the carrot and forget about what's in it that makes the carrot good to eat.
Too bad, Pollan says, that nutritional scientists can only study one nutrient at a time and not the whole carrot. That approach takes the "nutrient out of the context of the food, the food out of the context of the diet, and the diet out of the context of the lifestyle." And that doesn't work because even the simplest food is a hopelessly complex thing, "a virtual wilderness of chemical compounds." A pox on these reductionist scientists, Pollan argues.
So let's just eat right. And that may be as simple as "don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize." Here's his manifesto: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. In countries that adhere to a diet Pollan proscribes, which entails eating more than a pound or more of fruit and vegetables a day, the rate of cancer is half of what it is in the United States.
There you have it. So, what's for dinner? More than half of this slim book deals with diet and where food comes from and choosing those foods that are likely to make you feel good and be good for your health. That's a food-eater's topic he's touched on before in "The Botany of Desire" and especially in "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
Eat ordinary. In this discussion of foods that are good for us, Pollan develops a series of personal eating policies, food rules of thumb or eating algorithms that will improve our diet. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket" is one of them. Stay out of the central isles because that's where the processed foods are. "Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does," for the same reason you should be cruising the produce aisle. "Cook and, if you can, plant a garden." Do that and your food will be a product of nature; not industry.
Pollan has already told us to eat mostly plants. He narrows the menu even more when he urges us to eat wild things. Two of the most nutritious plants in the world are weeds: lamb's quarter and purslane. They and their wild food cousins are in the plant pantheon because they contain higher doses of the compounds they need to defend themselves against pests and disease, those same compounds that turn out to be really good for us. Wild is better. That goes for fish, too. If you need to eat real meat, look for meat that comes from animals that are free-range and a result grass-fed. That's still the way they raise beef in Argentina and buffalo in parts of the Midwest and Canada. Stay away from animal protein that's been penned in a feedlot and fattened up for slaughter on corn.
Pollan writes convincingly. His argument is simple and straightforward. Ultimately he would like us to simplify or diet and make eating food a communal experience. That may take more time and may hike the grocery bill. But look at the extra time and money as an investment in feeling better and living healthier. We can all agree that's a good thing.
Summary of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Michael Pollan's last book , The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.
Amazon Significant Seven, January 2008: Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it's at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that's come to typify our food culture. Many processed foods vie for a spot in our grocery baskets, claiming to lower cholesterol, weight, glucose levels, you name it. Yet Pollan shows that these convenient "healthy" alternatives to whole foods are appallingly inconvenient: our health has a nation has only deteriorated since we started exiling carbs, fats--even fruits--from our daily meals. His razor-sharp analysis of the American diet (as well as its architects and its detractors) offers an inspiring glimpse of what it would be like if we could (a la Humpty Dumpty) put our food back together again and reconsider what it means to eat well. In a season filled with rallying cries to lose weight and be healthy, Pollan's call to action?"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."--is a program I actually want to follow. --Anne Bartholomew
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